are the ones that show unequivocal preceptions of media bias?

While Meacham might very well be right about the conflict part, what he is leaving out is that in every story where it is portrayed as X vs Y the media almost always portray one side as "good" using positive words to describe them and one side as "bad" using negative words to describe them. And, in 80% of the cases (or more depending on the particualr outlet) the positively portrayed "side" is liberal.

That is the part that people remember as liberal bias. If the media themselves were split more 50/50 with roughly similar numbers of conservative and liberal, there would be the same conflict stories (assuming Meacham's argument is acurate) but they would be split between the liberal side being good and the conservative side being good and therefore the particular media outlet overtime would not be seen as too liberal or too conservative.

But, we are reminded of the uproar and threats of violence and the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it hysteria that was caused by the NYT hiring William Kristol to write an op-ed piece once a week.

The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic. Let's get it back! Alan Keyes '08.

Mr. Meacham is only indulging in the art of delusion. This site and parent Media Research Center have thousands of examples of a strong leftward tilt of Old School Media outlets. While most of the bias is somewhat subconscious one can find constant examples of liberal jujitzu to avoid obvious questions to be answered.

I've said this before but I will say it again - the argument needs to be concentrated towards whether news outlets/sources are acting in a pro-Democrat or a pro-Republican manner. The left/right dicotomy is too easily manipulated so that a rare CNN pro-military piece is assailed by KOS/DU/Dems as showing that CNN is "right-wing" while a critical military piece by Fox would draw cries of "lefttist Fox" from Free Republic, LGF etc.

The only way ultimately that one can make the point of whether a news source is biased one way or the other is to have a position paper on both parties and then compare the reporting. The most verifiable position paper put out every four years by political parties is the Presidential party platforms and to a smaller extent lists of legislative goals by party leaders leading up to off-year elections. This, I believe, is the best yard stick necessary to ascertain true bias, intentional or not, pertaining to any particular media outlet.

After a quick perusal of the party platforms in conjunction with generally understood positions on core issues (abortion, taxes, defense, crime etc.) it is clear, shown time and time again by great sites like this one, that the old school news outlets, from ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NYT, Wash Post, Chicago tribune, Boston Globe,Time, Newsweek and on ad nauseum are biased towards the Democrats. It is beyond dispute.

Gee, I guess he missed the survey where they all support abortion, gay rights and vote for democrats, huh?

Nobody buys these lame explanations. If the real driver behind these stories was merely a love of conflict, then the stories would have an equal dispersion of liberal and conservative protagonists, but they don't. The reported conflicts are much more reported with a liberal protagonist and a conservative antagonist.

Besides, as we've often said here, bias is as much shown in the stories that they don't tell (like party affiliation only when the GOP is in scandal, etc.) as it is the deliberate coloring of the stories that they do tell.

Let's face it, the surge is the perfect rebuttal. The surge is drama on an epic scale. And think of the narrative of the story! Hollywood can only dream of this kind of drama. It's a story of the most powerful and mechanized army in history, with megatons of firepower bursting from every conceivable weapon, and yet they're winning the counter-insurgency not with weapons, but with honor and face-to-face human persuasion. My God, what a great story and drama that is, when you really think about it. The greatest army on earth is winning, not just with missiles and bombs, but much more because soldiers are building up people instead of killing them.

Yet, these same drama-loving storytellers ... ignore the story completely. What does that tell you? For one thing, it tells you that Meacham is peddling a fairy tale.

"And if you tell the same story again and again and again - it's kind of boring."

I know I grew bored of the "we're losing the war" propaganda, but the MSM just kept trying to sell it - for years.

Lefties are ideologically driven, so it makes sense that the leftie MSM is also ideologically driven. It's pretty obvious, actually.

"Newsweek's Meacham: Media Bias Is Toward Conflict, Not Ideology"

It's appropriate that he said it on Comedy Central, but it's a very old joke.

"And if you tell the same story again and again and again - it's kind of boring."

Breaking new, freshly uncovered, surprising story: Bush lied!!

Delusion isn't just an Olympic sledding sport, you know!

This is like the old saying that if you have to keep telling people you aren't a whore you are probably a whore.

Saddam Hussein and terrorism. The rest of the story...

http://www.regimeoft...

soooo, telling the same story (Iraq war going badly) is boring, eh?  I guess he and Newsweek must have figured  that out because they're not reporting the same story(surge is working) over and over again, are they?

and of course he goes on the Daily Show to espouse his views, big surprise.  Does he really expect to convince anyone with such a simplistic and transparent argument?

no wonder they have no readers.